Showing blog posts by Mike Hall

I’m a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. I came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When my collar was still blue, I carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. I’ve also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen me at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. I was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still have the shirts, lost the hair.

House Republicans on Tuesday released their budget proposal that privatizes Medicare, cuts Medicaid, repeals the Affordable Care Act, and slashes vital nutrition and family assistance programs. At the same time, it cuts taxes on the wealthy, capital gains and multinational corporations. It also is full of accounting tricks and gimmicks so that Republicans can claim it balances the budget.

In a live webcast today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will discuss U.S. trade policy and American workers. The address and follow-up discussion will begin at 12:15 p.m. EDT from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The webcast will be available here.

The AFL-CIO’s Next Up Young Worker Summit kicks off Thursday, when more than 1,000 young union members, students and community activists meet in Chicago to map out strategies to create an economy that works for young people, including tackling crippling student debt, low and stagnant wages, discrimination in the workplace and a host of other issues that young workers face on the job.

The United States is the only advanced country in the world without a national paid family leave policy and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) recently said the Empire State isn’t ready to join California, New Jersey and Rhode Island with a statewide paid leave policy. On Monday, a group of prominent women’s and workplace advocates—including AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler—and business leaders told Cuomo he is wrong.

“America is demanding a raising wages economy, but that idea is under severe assault because of a push by some politicians to take America in the opposite direction with right to work,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka writes in an op-ed in today’s USA Today.

While most sports fans will be enthralled with the first round of “March Madness”—the NCAA’s college basketball championship tourney—outdoors enthusiasts can turn to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) for a bit of “Critter Madness” to decide the top big game, upland/waterfowl, saltwater or freshwater fish.

The United Steelworkers (USW) have reached a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract with Shell Oil Co., the union announced Thursday. The deal will serve as a pattern agreement for the rest of the industry. USW members at several refineries struck on Feb. 1, and the strike grew to include about 7,000 workers at 15 sites across the country.

If anyone needs more evidence why the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement shouldn’t be rushed through Congress on the “Fast Track,” which does not allow any amendments or improvements in the deal—just a take-it-or-leave-it, yes-or-no vote—read Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) column in today’s Washington Post.

Join AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler on Friday, Feb. 27, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EST for a live Twitter chat about the AFL-CIO’s Next Up Young Worker Summit. You can follow the chat on @AFLCIONxtUp and @LizShuler and the hashtag #1uNextUp.

“America’s legacy of racism and racial injustice has been and continues to be a fundamental obstacle to workers’ efforts to act together to build better lives for all of us,” says the AFL-CIO Executive Council in a statement announcing the creation of a Labor Commission on Racial and Economic Justice.